Synopsis: The country you love and the values it represents are being destroyed by a misguided leader. You can continue to live in relative comfort by not involving yourself, or you can take action to save the democracy you love. Set outside of Rome in the villas and hillsides of Tusculum, Richard Nelson continues his revelatory exploration of history with a new play that chronicles those entangled in Julius Caesar's world of manipulation and power.

Cast:
Brian Dennehy .... Cicero
David Strathairn .... Cassius
Aidan Quinn .... Brutus
Maria Tucci .... Servilia
Joe Grifasi .... Syrus
Gloria Reuben .... Porcia

Notes:
• Conversations in Tusculum reunites David with playwright Richard Nelson, whom he previously worked with onstage in Rodney's Wife, Brian Dennehy, whom he previously worked with in the CBS mini-series Day One and Maria Tucci, whom he worked with in John Sayles's Enormous Changes At the Last Minute.
• With the exception of a week-long stint onstage in Epic Theatre Center's Beauty On the Vine, Conversations in Tusculum marks David's return to the stage in an actual play since 2004's Rodney's Wife.

Critical Praise & Commentary:
• "...Strathairn's low-key delivery shows the damage done to Cassius' sense of self." -Dan Bacalzo, TheaterMania

• "Mr. Strathairn delivers these lines with a weary self-reproach that suffuses all the performances... Mr. Strathairn's Cassius, whose wife has been appropriated as a plaything by Caesar, seems to grow more emaciated before your eyes, as if his swallowed anger had become a fast-acting cancer." -Ben Brantley, The New York Times

• "Strathairn's pained, downcast Cassius, whose wife Caesar has commanded to accompany him on his Spanish campaign, is also first-rate." -Robert Feldberg, The New Jersey Record

• "...Mr. Strathairn [has] affecting naturalism..." -Eric Grode, The New York Sun

• "As Cassius, David Strathairn cuts a fashionable figure in the beige three-piece suit provided by Susan Hilferty. He is a more low-key gentleman than his friend Brutus, but his hatred of Caesar runs deep and dark. Unlike in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, he does not come across as the 'lean and hungry' linchpin of the conspiracy." -Malcom Johnson, Courant.com

• "...the brooding Cassius, the most neurotic member of this elite circle, in David Strathairn's elegant perf." -Marilyn Stasio, Variety

(David On His Role:)
• "You don't want to go overboard with research. Sometimes there's just one fact that you can hold on to. [Cassius was a Epicurean]. Friendship was really important to the Epicurean, so Cassius hated Caesar not necessarily because of his policies but because of the person Caesar was. It was a personal vendetta." -David Strathairn, 2008

Related Links:
The Public Theater (off site)